Today is Thursday March 11th and the S&P’s are putting in a good late day rally.

It is nice to see the markets have some life left in them for the bulls sake. The Dow was up about 45 points but remains the lager of the bunch. It is still 110 points off its January high, while the S&P today is 4 points beyond its January high; (10 Dow points is equivalent to 1 S&P point). The NASDAQ is 48 points above it January high at 2368 and putting in a good showing.

Today I took a couple of small trades and was done. There definitely was more on the table and I am not crying about it one bit. I even had a second chance on my second trade to stretch it out but I just took what I had in mind for today. I only watched the market for a few minutes with the first trade lasting 5 minutes and the second trade lasting the same. I was doing things in between those trades and was not totally into it. I was sure that my timing was good and it was. I did see this move coming. I will put up a screen shot of what I saw just before my first little trade. As I said, I could have easily stayed with the trade and took it out of my T-2 Screen for multiple points, but again, its no big deal. Next week I will gear up mentally for some good gains if the market is cooperating. My two little scalp trades below, first for 1 S&P point and the second for .75 and 1.00 point.                                          

Here is a chart of the S&P futures mixed with the Cash Dow Index and the Cash NASDAQ Index. There is a nice strong pattern that was building for the bulk of the day. I have some notes on the chart so take a look. The expected target for something like this is the body of the consolidation, high to low. Measure the distance top to bottom, then project that out on top of the high to see the expected return of the move once it breaks. I played the trade for a 1 point move before it broke. I missed the actual breakout, but I was doing other things. This week has just been like that, but I have still been able to participate.

Yesterday, I was talking about trying to create new habits and replace the old ones. One of the key points was to balance your life with all of its duties and expectations. If not, pressure will build up in area’s that are left unattended to and that will eventually come back and bite you. It will have a drag to some degree on your trading performance. Since that is what we want to improve, it pays to be aware of this before the imbalance becomes to great. Taking action to improve, change, redirect and prioritize is going to be key.

Being consistent with your trading has a lot to do with keeping things balanced in your life and that is the bottom line. Paying the price to achieve this balance takes discipline and was another key point from yesterday. Are we willing to pay the price to achieve greatness. The possibilities for living a wealthy, healthy and fruitful life are all just before us, but again, are we willing to pay the price? I put myself in there too. I have my challenges and I know what they are specifically. Do you know yours? It is important that you do, so if and when you want to see lasting change, you know exactly what you have to do to achieve it. Not knowing, wastes time, energy and keeps you that much farther away from ever attaining it.

If you are willing to pay the price to attain financial independence, then you can not shrink back from making the hard choices in all area’s of your life. Trading can be addictive, I think everyone who trades knows that. If you don’t, you probably will pretty soon. You need to keep a handle on that, and not let it take control of you, and other obligations. Its more than just money, it is time. We often want to work hard to achieve, that is what we are always told. What we are not told, is that if we become unbalanced with our pursuits, we often times will fall. Remove a leg from a stool and see what happens. Straight down to the ground.

Some traders don’t like addressing things like this and see it as a waste of time. I hate to say it, but those are the ones who will never make it in my opinion.

Being willing to pay the price comes in many forms. Many traders do not want to admit that they could use help, but hold to the idea, “I can figure it out on my own”. I was one of those guys. I never took a course, had a trading mentor, or subscribed to anything stock market related. It took me a lot longer than it had to to figure things out. I guess I did have a bit of “PRIDE”, which was hard to see at that time.

Paying the price can take many forms:

*Not willing to learn from someone who know how to trade * Not willing to change destructive trading patterns * Not balancing other time obligations * Getting in a better financial position so that we are not risking money that we can not afford to lose * Putting our past failures behind us, but being determined to learn from our mistakes and on and on the list can go.

Are you willing to pay the price to be the trader that you aspire? Only you can answer that question. If you need someone to help you trough some of these tough issues, I am here. Don’t let PRIDE get in your way from reaching your goals and dreams this year.

Wishing all my readers the best, “Trade On”.